In For The Long Haul: First Fleet Voyage & Colonial Australia: The Convicts' Perspective

By Annegret Hall

Many stories of the First Fleet and NSW colony are prejudicial to the conduct of convicts and especially females. This book relates the history of this period through the eyes of the convicts, and in doing so debunks many untruths about the young men and women who struggled to create a new life in an unknown land. The lives of t

• Language: English
• Publisher: ESH Publication
• Release date: Nov 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780987629210

Annegret Hall

Born in Germany, Annegret Hall married an Australian in 1992 and moved to Perth, where she worked in materials science at the University of WA, and as a quality assurance manager for a nanotechnology firm. She has co-authored a number of papers in scientific journals, including Nature. Annegret has always been fascinated by early colonial history, and since her retirement has researched original sources about convicts transported to Australia. This has led her to question a number of the widely-accepted views on poor convict behavior conveyed by early histories of the First Fleet.

Book preview

In For The Long Haul

IN FOR THE LONG HAUL

FIRST FLEET VOYAGE & COLONIAL AUSTRALIA: THE CONVICTS’ PERSPECTIVE

ANNEGRET HALL

ESH Publication

First published in 2018.

Revised editions published in 2019, 2020 and 2023.

Copyright © Annegret Hall 2018

www.annegrethall.com

ESH Publication, Nedlands 6009, Australia

All reasonable attempts have been made to communicate with copyright holders of the images reproduced in this book. Any corrections to information provided about these images should be communicated to the author.

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the author.

NLA

ISBN: 978 0 9876292 1 0 (ebook)

Cover design by Robert Hall

To Syd

and

his twelve convict ancestors

OTHER BOOKS ON COLONIAL AUSTRALIA BY THE AUTHOR

www.annegrethall.com

Andrew Thompson

From Boy Convict to

Wealthiest Settler in Colonial Australia

Doctor Redfern

Mutineer, Convict, Medical Pioneer, Rights Activist

Map of the Voyage to New South Wales

CONTENTS

A Truly Epic Adventure

1. Poverty & Punishment

2. Poor Rural Youth

3. Female Servitude

4. Botany Bay Scheme

5. Assembling the Fleet

6. Portsmouth to Rio

7. Female Convict Behaviour

8. Long Haul to Botany Bay

9. A Colony at Sydney Cove

10. A Hearty Wedding Supper

11. A Struggling Colony

12. Second Fleet Arrival

13. First Settlers

14. Phillip’s Departure

15. The Rum Corps, 1793-1796

16. Floods & Debts, 1797-1801

17. Governors King & Bligh, 1802-1806

18. The Rum Rebellion, 1807-1808

19. Bligh Defies The Rebels, 1808-1810

20. Macquarie & Equality, 1810-1815

21. Prosperity for Emancipists, 1816-1821

22. Currency Lads & Lasses, 1822-1825

23. Despotism & Dysfunction, 1825-1831

24. End of the Convict Era, 1832-1843

Acknowledgments

Maps & Illustrations

Conversion Chart

Bibliography

Notes

A TRULY EPIC ADVENTURE

PROLOGUE

…. it was one of the most ambitious and optimistic voyages of all time. It’s like today sending a group of citizens against their will to establish a colony on the moon. ¹

At daybreak on the morning of 13 May 1787 a flotilla of eleven small ships commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip set sail from the Spithead anchorage off Portsmouth heading through the Needles into the English Channel. ² It was the start of an 8-month 17,000-mile voyage across often-uncharted seas to New South Wales on the east coast of New Holland. The flotilla, later to be known as the First Fleet, carried 1500 people, half of whom were convicts sentenced to transportation Beyond the Seas. The primary purpose of the expedition was to create a new colony on an unknown continent on the other side of the world. By any measure, this was a truly epic venture, and few on board these small ships understood the enormity of what lay ahead.

The story of the First Fleet voyage, and the establishment of a New South Wales colony, will be told wherever possible through the eyes of the transported convicts. For the most part this uses the life experiences of actual transported convicts, and two people, in particular, Anthony Rope and Elizabeth Pulley. Information about transported convicts has been sourced from many places but these two young transportees will provide the common thread throughout the story. Their experiences in this venture were not special; they mirror those of many other convicts. Anthony and Elizabeth both came from Norfolk but did not know each other before transportation, and as was the case for most single men and women about to be sent to this remote land.

Anthony Rope, aged 30, was placed on the First Fleet ship Alexander and Elizabeth Pulley, 25, on the Friendship; both were transported because of dangerously overcrowded prisons in England. The First Fleet’s departure from Portsmouth in May 1787 initiated the Botany Bay Scheme – a scheme only acted upon when the overflowing British prisons had reached a crisis point, and public anger became a political threat to the government. Sending convicts to a remote location on the east coast of New Holland was now seen as the only realistic substitute for the practice of shipping convicts to the American colonies, which had stopped with the American Revolutionary War. Even so, transporting convicts so far away was a risky undertaking, both for ships and the government. Many believed it would fail totally and that the ships and their company would never be seen again. Michael Pembroke the author of Arthur Phillip – Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy claims that it was one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted. ³ Indeed, since very little was known of the southern oceans or New South Wales in the 1780s, this expedition was just as challenging as the incredible Man-on-the-Moon attempt almost two hundred years later.

At the time of sailing, Lloyd’s of London, contrary to its motto Fidentia, would have had little confidence in the Scheme succeeding and, for that matter, nor did most of the British politicians. Arthur Phillip understood better than anyone the risks that this expedition entailed, and he was meticulous in provisioning his fleet for the long journey ahead. In the hope of restricting the endemic diseases present in confined quarters on long passages at sea he had also insisted on the best possible sanitary conditions for the convicts and crew.

Despite the importance of the occasion, there were no special farewells as the flotilla departed Spithead on the morning of 13 May 1787 – no fanfares, no gun salutes from the Portsmouth harbour fort, no special flags fluttering and no government dignitaries waving their hats as the rag-tag little fleet set sail. Commander Phillip did not expect any such ceremony and probably would have discouraged any suggestion of it; he needed to concentrate on the difficult task ahead. He knew that his convoy of mostly prisoners would face many physical and medical obstacles before it would reach the coast of New South Wales.

One can envisage that, as the flagship HMS Sirius bore south through a blustery English Channel, Phillip stood confidently on the quarterdeck knowing that he had done everything possible for the success of the voyage and was looking forward to the challenges ahead. Fancifully perhaps, we can imagine him humming the andante of a piano concerto he had recently heard in London; the No. 21 in C major, written by the young musical celebrity of the time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then only 31 years of age. After all, the Royal Navy was a service that greatly valued music and Arthur Phillip was a veteran mariner fluent in several languages with broad cultural interests.

Critical episodes in the lives of Anthony Rope and Elizabeth Pulley, the two central people in our history told from a convict perspective, occur well before HMS Sirius led the First Fleet out into the English Channel. Knowledge of Anthony and Elizabeth’s early lives is relevant because it gives insights into why many illiterate rural convicts found themselves on board ships bound for the ends of the earth, and, more importantly, why Britain needed to resort to the precarious Botany Bay Scheme at all. Many of the answers to these questions can be found by studying the living and working conditions of common people, especially rural workers, at that time.

The historical narrative opens with an examination of Anthony and Elizabeth’s early upbringing and livelihoods prior to being convicted of stealing. Their experiences replicate those of many fellow convicts who were unemployed young labourers. For the young men and women starving in the land of plenty – and 18 th century Britain certainly offered much to the upper and middle classes – stealing had become the only way to stay alive. Their daily existences were subject to continual unemployment, social disruption and economic destitution – the prosperous and expanding British economy was mostly inaccessible to them. In this sharply stratified society, it was the incarceration of the underprivileged in great numbers that became the overwhelming motivation for establishing a new penal colony in New South Wales.

This book also delves into the politics, influences and causes that led to the eventual choice of the remote coast of New Holland as the site for the penal colony, and explains the careful preparation and logistics needed to ensure the success of the long voyage and prison settlement. Later chapters describe the dangerous 8-month sea voyage of the flotilla as it traversed largely unexplored seas. Telling the story of this journey is, in itself, a remarkable chronicle of the skill and courage of the seamen, and the resilience of convict transportees who were closely confined below decks in dreadful conditions.

The story will explain the enormous physical, emotional and political challenges that confronted convicts, emancipists and settlers – these were the men and women that would eventually ensure the very survival of the colony. The hardship and suffering sustained by the transported cohort, in an environment of servitude, deprivation and hunger, will be revealed through documented cases. Just staying alive in this isolated harsh environment, let alone flourishing, required much fortitude and sacrifice. That these mostly illiterate people prospered and became the stalwarts of a free and democrat government was the major impetus for Australia developing into a land of opportunity and equality.

POVERTY & PUNISHMENT

CHAPTER 1

There are prisons, into which whoever looks will, at first sight of the people confined there, be convinced, that there is some great error in the management of them: the sallow meagre countenances declare, without words, that they are very miserable: many who went in healthy, are in a few months changed to emaciated dejected objects. ¹

The 18

th

century in England was a time of enormous social, economic and political change. There were a multitude of reasons for these upheavals, but the principal ones were the all-embracing industrial and agrarian revolutions. These dramatically altered the lives of both urban and rural working classes by eroding traditional employment opportunities, and, ultimately, decimating the cottage-based industries. These changes took place when Britain’s colonial empire, along with its African slave trade, was burgeoning, but they also occurred in a period of major military conflicts with France, Spain and the American colonies. The burgeoning growth in international trade and commodity markets at the time contributed significantly to the overall wealth of the mercantile classes but, in most respects, it reduced the opportunities and living standards of unskilled and illiterate workers.

The advent of new industrial and transportation technologies proved a major factor in Britain’s increasing mercantile success. John Kay’s invention of the flying shuttle in 1733 and the carding machine in 1754 accelerated cloth weaving and were the forerunners of innovations that ultimately led to the complete automation of textile manufacturing. James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1765; Matthew Boulton and James Watt began producing steam engines for factories in 1774. By 1780, the combination of Hargreaves’ inventions, Richard Arkwright’s water frame, and the increased access to canals linking major population centres, made Britain a world leader in the manufacture of high quality textiles.

These industrial advances increased the prosperity, sophistication and leisure pursuits of the British upper and middle classes of society and provided the intellectual environment for the appreciation of progressive social concepts, including the abolition of slavery. The mid 18 th century in Britain was a time of far-reaching intellectual advances in scientific knowledge, politics and philosophy and is commonly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment and Science. The outspoken views of William Wilberforce, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Benjamin Franklin and many others, were discussed within literate and political circles and became catalysts for significant shifts in the social attitudes of the educated. The tolerant views of King George III cultivated a relatively liberal approach to social mobility and political change. George III suffered from bouts of porphyria during his 50-year reign but for most of this time he remained politically astute and active.

The rapid increase in national prosperity and liberal attitudes did not reward everyone in Britain. The upper echelon of society – the landed gentry and mercantile classes – profited but there were far fewer benefits for the rest. The prospects for rural workers were further damaged by legally enforceable changes to land-management practices. At the start of the 18 th century, tenant farmers had small leaseholds to grow cereal crops and those with sheep and cattle were allowed to graze on the common land. This provided a basic subsistence living that supported many rural families: freehold and tenant farmers, cottagers, squatters and farm labourers. In effect, the traditional communal sharing of land allowed the ‘humblest and poorest labourer to rise in the village’. ² This basic agrarian lifestyle had existed since feudal times, and it was how most of England’s country population survived. The mostly illiterate rural poor were largely unaware of the changes that were soon to disrupt their traditional livelihood.

Agricultural land practices altered dramatically in 1710 when laws permitting major landholders to fence off farming lands were enacted, thus restricting their communal use. Successive changes to the Enclosure Act (Inclosure Act) led to the consolidation of small farms into larger estates. This encouraged more efficient farming practices but seriously reduced the earnings of rural villages and small freehold farmers. It also meant that there was much less need for agricultural labour.

The new laws reduced the income and food-producing capacity of farmers who did not own land. Large numbers of rural labourers and their families, most of whom had for many generations scrounged a meagre living as small tenant farmers became destitute. Some moved to towns hoping for work in the industrialised textile factories, but they usually discovered that the machine-based industries offered little opportunity for unskilled labourers. As a consequence, unemployment, poverty and hunger became commonplace in many parts of rural and urban Britain by the mid-18 th century.

Although the full impact of the Enclosure Act was not felt until the 19 th century, by 1760 up to 40% land in Norfolk County had been enclosed. ³ By the 1780s life for the poor in rural Norfolk, where both Anthony and Elizabeth lived, became a bleak struggle for survival. There was little or no social assistance for the unemployed, and many poor people stole to feed their families. The disparity between the rich and poor at that time was seen in the spending by the wealthy on fad foods such as tea and sugar. It was claimed that ‘as much superfluous money is expended on tea, sugar, etc as would maintain four millions more of subjects in BREAD’. ⁴

It is difficult today to fully appreciate the gulf that existed between the gentry and the working classes in Britain up until the 20 th century. The famous author Jane Austen (1775-1817) lived in England at the same time as Elizabeth and Anthony. Jane’s father was a country pastor, and this meant that the Austen family was of ‘modest means’ and were even considered poor by their relatives. But because they were educated and well connected, all of the Austen family members were able to forge successful careers. Nevertheless, for this enlightened Christian family their social separation from the lower classes ‘remained absolute and unquestioned; both sides believed that God had arranged the system’. ⁵ The stark reality of the 18th century was that the upper and lower classes lived in separate worlds – one full of privilege, education, smart clothing, witty theatre, coaches, glamorous balls, parties and opportunity – the other full of deprivation, hard work, poor housing, illiteracy, poverty and frequent hunger. These two worlds rarely intersected, and when they did it was only if advantageous to the gentry; usually when cheap labour or rent income was needed. To the majority of the privileged classes the poor remained nameless beings invisible in their daily lives, even when present in their houses as servants. Consequently, the wealthy had scant concern for their wellbeing. The common belief was that the working classes existed because it was God’s Will, and they deserved to be where they were. This was an unrelentingly hard and miserable time to be poor.

The movement of rural workers in search of work to urban centres led to overcrowding and increased unemployment in the major industrial towns. It inevitably fuelled increased property and debtor crimes. Local authorities and communities in Britain were not accustomed to, and ill prepared for, the growing level of lawlessness. The demand for improved ‘law and order’ grew. But solving the high petty crime rate was not simply a matter of expanding the existing police force. Law-enforcement officers were virtually non-existent in England and very few offenders were ever brought to justice. In fact, prior to the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, laws were enforced by volunteer parish constables in villages, or by Justices-of-the-Peace in larger towns.

In the early 18 th century, a lawbreaker convicted of minor property or debtor crimes was usually imprisoned for a short time in a local gaol. Because serious crimes, such as murder and treason, usually incurred the death penalty, rural gaols, which were mostly private, were unsuitable for lengthy incarceration. However, the practice of giving light sentences for petty crimes was about to undergo dramatic change.

By mid-century the fear that increasing crime rates would lead to widespread social disruption spawned new penalties intended to discourage property theft. The legal imperatives for these were bolstered by a growing concern about the civil insurrection in France, especially after the French Revolution took place in 1789. The British Parliament passed bills reclassifying many petty crimes as capital offences (to which the death sentence applies). Capital crimes now included burglary, highway-robbery, house-breaking in daytime, private stealing or picking pockets above 1 shilling, shoplifting above 5 shillings, stealing above 40 shillings, maiming or stealing a cow, horse or sheep, or breaking into a house or church. ⁶ The official punishment for these offences was now the same as for murder and treason – death by hanging.

Quite unfairly the new laws came into effect rapidly and were little understood by the poor, of whom 90% were illiterate. Consequently, the severity of the changes went largely unappreciated by the working class, which Thomas Paine – author of The Rights of Man – claimed was intentional to disadvantage the poor. Other enlightened members of English society, including the judiciary, strongly opposed the imposition of the new capital sentences for minor offences and this became a cause célèbre for many social reformers; the same people advocating for the abolition of the slave trade in the 1770s.

Mercifully, there were several ad hoc legal options available to those members of the judiciary who were inclined to avoid the imposition of a capital sentence. The legal loopholes were not recognised officially, but they were commonly applied, nonetheless. In particular, juries could be encouraged to apply pious perjury in assessing the severity of an offence when a prisoner was charged with a minor property or financial crime. Such actions permitted judges to assign imprisonment by transportation rather than the death sentence. For example, a court clerk could routinely understate the value of stolen property on the charge sheet in order that it was below the capital offence threshold. ⁷

This practice is especially important to this story since, as will be detailed later, Anthony Rope was sentenced to 7 years transportation although the initial charge sheets clearly show that he stole goods to the value of 55 shillings, well in excess of the listed capital offence threshold of 40 shillings. Across the nation, judges and juries displayed an admirable reluctance to commit criminals to the gallows for minor offences, especially if they were women. Of course, some magistrates strictly applied the new capital sentences and became known as Hanging Judges. Their sessions were to be avoided at all costs. Fortunately, even when a crime was ruled as a capital offence by the court, it could be, and often was, commuted by Royal Pardon. The other person central to our story, Elizabeth Pulley, benefited from such an amnesty. In the last of her five court appearances she was sentenced to death, which was later commuted by a Royal Pardon to transportation for 7 years.

In fact, the widespread application of judicial leniency in the late 1700s meant that transportation beyond the seas became the de facto sentence imposed by courts for minor crimes. Relaxation of the capital sentencing laws was tolerated because a sentence of transportation satisfied the political imperative of removing petty lawbreakers from decent society. Ironically, the lenient judicial practices posed a new problem for the prison system in England; where were all these transported prisoners to go? After 1775, the American Colonies no longer accepted transportees and there was no other offshore prison to send them to.

A brief overview of earlier British convict transportation practices is relevant here. In 1717, the British Parliament passed the Act for the Further Preventing Robbery, Burglary, and Other Felonies, and for the More Effective Transportation of Felons, etc. (4 Geo. I cap. XI), which established penal transportation to America with a seven-year convict bond service for minor offenders, and a fourteen-year convict bond service for more serious crimes. Between 1718 and 1775 an estimated 50,000 convicts were transported to the British-American colonies. ⁸ This represented about a quarter of all British migrants to the North American colonies at a time when they were desperately short of labour. The American colonists saw convict transportation as beneficial socially, politically and economically. It disposed of minor criminals at a cost that was less than gaoling them and a boon to the colonies by providing cheap labour. This was, in effect, and indeed in fact, a slave trade under a different guise. From its inception, transportation to the American colonies was a private business enterprise. Shipping contractors managed the movement of the convicts, obtained contracts from the sheriffs and in the colonies recouped their costs by selling the prisoners at auctions. Colonists would buy a convict as an indentured servant for the duration of their sentence. During an indenture the living and working conditions imposed on convicts differed little from those of slaves. ⁹

However, by the mid 18 th century, convict labour had become less attractive to American colonialists and, moreover, in the 1770s the prospect of antislavery laws in England spelled the end of this practice. Maryland was the last colony to accept convicts and by 1775 the American Revolutionary War ended the trade of imported British goods and convicts. On 11 Jan 1776, the London Gazetteer reported ‘there will be no more convicts sent to America whilst the country remains unsettled.’ ¹⁰ The article suggested that transportation would resume just as soon as peace was restored. This never took place.

With the loss of the American colonies, the systematic disposal of convicts to places beyond the seas came to a halt. Nevertheless, most judges consistently refused to apply capital punishment to relatively minor crimes and, where it was applied, capital sentences were often commuted to transportation. Consequently, the land gaols in the 1770s and 1780s overflowed with prisoners awaiting the imposition of a sentence that could not be enacted and, importantly, could not be altered. It was a serious judicial stalemate.

The Hulks Act (16 Geo III, c. 43) was passed by parliament in 1776 as a two-year temporary measure to house prisoners committed for transportation in decommissioned naval ships, called ‘hulks’, moored on the Thames River. These floating prisons were intended as a short-term solution to gaol overcrowding until somewhere could be found to send the transportees. The Hulks Act made an important distinction between prisoners sentenced specifically to transportation or hard labour. Male convicts given the death sentence, but commuted to transportation, were required to do 3 to 10 years hard labour; specifically, to dredge the Thames and improve its navigability.

The government awarded the first contract for overseeing prisoners on the hulks to Duncan Campbell, who had been involved in convict transportation to the American colonies from 1758 to 1775. One of his ships, the Justitia, became the first hulk on the Thames. Parliament regularly reviewed the 1776 Hulks Act and, although there was opposition to the practice, the Act remained in effect for 80 years.

Throughout this time the overall control and maintenance of prisoners on hulks was, on the whole, more rigorous than those in gaols. Hulk prisoners were usually better clothed and fed and, with good behaviour, could have their period of confinement reduced. Moreover, in early 1776 the government offered pardons for any transportees who joined the army or navy or could remove themselves from England for the duration of their sentence. The last option was clearly only possible for those with money or influential friends. The wars with the American colonies, France and Spain created a demand for soldiers and sailors, who were increasingly drafted from hulks and gaols. This reduced hulk numbers, but prisoners from the overcrowded land gaols quickly took their place.

The conditions on hulks may have been better than gaols but the work regimes aboard were brutal and harsh, and the mortality rates were high. In 1776, the prison reformer John Howard surveyed British gaols and hulks and determined that the high death rate on the hulks was due mainly to typhus prisoners invariably contracted in land gaols. ¹¹ In 1777, the hulk contractor Campbell reported that convicts were seldom free from illness they contracted in gaols. Between August 1776 and March 1778, of the 632 prisoners sent to hulks, 176 had died (28%). To promote better sanitation, a new Hulks Act was passed in 1779 that required all male convicts sent to hulks be washed, given new clothes and isolated for four days at a secure place so that diseases could be detected. An additional hospital ship was provided for this purpose. On a subsequent visit to the hulks in 1779, Howard observed that the conditions and health of the convicts had improved. ¹²

The hulk death rate slowly decreased and by 1783 had sunk to 19%. By 1785-86, when Anthony Rope was on a hulk, the mortality rate had fallen significantly. When Campbell’s contract was renewed in 1779, he purchased another ship as a replacement for the aging Justitia with the same name and fitted her out to accommodate 260 prisoners. ¹³

However, land gaols had some advantages for the rich. Prisoners with money could make their life much easier, as gaolers were prepared to provide better food, quarters and clothing to those who could pay. Such practices were prohibited on hulks and the same food, bedding and work conditions applied to all. Moreover, few visitors were allowed on hulks and alcoholic drinks were banned, except for small (low alcohol) beer. Hulk prisoners were confined to bed at 7 pm. ¹⁴

In 1779, out of the total of 4379 prisoners in England and Wales, 526 were held on hulks. Three years on, out of a total of 4439 prisoners, only 204 were on hulks because of expired sentences, deaths and pardons to those enlisted in the military. ¹⁵ The end of the American and Continental wars in the 1780s meant that this last way to escape from prison life had disappeared. In 1784, the government passed a new Act making all hulk prisoners, independent of sentence, liable to hard labour pending transportation. At the end of 1785, the overcrowding of gaols saw two more naval hulks fitted out as floating prisons. In 1786 there were 1240 prisoners on five hulks; three moored on the Thames at Woolwich, the Justitia, Censor and Ceres; one in Plymouth, the Dunkirk and one in Portsmouth, the Fortunée. ¹⁶ The convicts who were to be eventually transported on the First Fleet mainly came from these hulks, the rest from metropolitan and county gaols across England.

In the early 18 th century, most towns in England used local gaols and bridewells to incarcerate minor felons. The bridewells were primarily for rehabilitating petty criminals; their role in the legal system was based on a 16 th-century penitentiary housed in King Henry VIII’s old London residence, Bridewell Court that had been used to house petty criminals doing hard labour. Later bridewells also imprisoned disorderly women and homeless children.

Most of the gaols and bridewells across England were decrepit old buildings and although Justices of the Peace had been granted powers to rebuild them in 1698, they were not obliged to, and most did not. As a consequence, decades later 30 of the major gaols were housed in decaying medieval castles, while smaller prisons were crammed into city gates or old fortified buildings. This meant that often prisoners had to be permanently chained to prevent escape. These cells were not intended for prisoners with lengthy sentences, and inmates were reliant on the whims of their turnkeys for their food and clothing. John Howard wrote in his 1777 edition of The State of the Prisons in England and Wales:

The fallow meagre countenances declare, without words, that they are very miserable; many who went in healthy, are in a few months changed to emaciated dejected objects. Some are seen pinning under diseases, sick and in prison; expiring on the floors, in loathsome cells, of pestilential fevers, and the confluent small-pox victims, I must say to the cruelty, but I will say to the inattention, of sheriffs, and gentlemen in the commission of the peace. ¹⁷

It was not uncommon for infectious diseases to decimate prison populations. Howard recorded how poorly fed and clothed prisoners were and he strongly recommended a system of state-controlled, rather than privately owned, gaols. He personally advocated a tough prison regime within a healthy environment of solitary confinement, hard labour and religious instruction in which prisoners were rehabilitated, not just punished. Howard argued that the main cause of gaol overcrowding was the large number of debtors sent to prisons. Insolvents often entered the gaols accompanied by their wives and children. By 1782, debtors comprised 2197 of the total number of 4439 prisoners. ¹⁸

When a prisoner’s gaol sentence had expired, they were not released until prison fees had been paid. The amount charged varied according to the gaol, the gaoler, the length and type of sentence and the food and bedding provided. Those without money could linger in gaol months longer than the length of their sentence. During this time food was often not provided, and prisoners were dependent on fellow inmates for food until their fee had been paid. These delays further contributed to overcrowding in prisons. In 1777 John Howard applied, without success, to legal authorities for gaolers to receive a salary instead of depending on income from prison fees. ¹⁹

POOR RURAL YOUTH

CHAPTER 2

Important incidents in his [life] have entirely vanished beneath the political horizon…. However, just about enough is known to tell a life and describe the times. …. We have very little information about [his] childhood and youth, but are well informed about the events of the day, so at least we can give an account of what he witnessed or heard about when he was a boy ¹

The majority of convicts transported on the First Fleet were poor illiterate males, younger than 30, and a high proportion of these came from the rural areas of England. It was here that poverty and unemployment was rampant, and, in the absence of any form of social or government support, men stole to keep themselves and their families alive. In the countryside, part-time magistrates, who were mostly landed gentry, sentenced the rural youth to death, prison and transportation for trivial offences – even for leaving their workplace without permission wearing servants’ clothing. Not all offenders were rural, but many of the crimes committed in London (Middlesex) districts were country youths who had migrated there in search of work and food. The enclosure laws and the industrial manufacture of textiles had destroyed the livelihoods of the small farmers, agricultural labourers and many others in small villages. It was here that the full impact of land aggregation and industrialisation was most severely felt. Without work or social support, these people were destitute. The brutal reality of the mid to late 18 th century was that starving workers with no prospect of employment had no other choice but to become a felon.

This story explores the lives of young men and women who were transported to Australia for relatively petty felonies. In particular it will trace the history of two young rural workers, Anthony Rope and Elizabeth Pulley, who lived through these tumultuous times. We shall see that their punishment for stealing was incarceration and, eventually, transportation as convicts on the First Fleet. Both came from small villages in Norfolk, but they did not know each other until they reached New South Wales. The story is not specifically about them however, their lives are typical of the convicts sent to establish a new colony on the continent that would eventually become Australia. Their individual stories replicate, in so many ways, those of mostly illiterate and underprivileged workers who were transported to the Ends of the Earth for stealing to prevent starvation.

There is little information about Anthony Rope’s life prior until 1784 when he appeared in court, at the age of 28. We do know whom his parents and siblings are from church documents but, since Anthony and his family were uneducated, no written record of his boyhood and youth has survived. Nevertheless, as historians are wont to claim, and Anthony Everitt aptly demonstrates this in his biography of Emperor Hadrian, even without citable records considerable knowledge of an individual may be deduced from the events and social conditions of the period. ² Anthony Rope lived through a turbulent and well-recorded era of English history and this biographical strategy will be applied to his story as well. While this approach involves a degree of speculation, Anthony’s whereabouts are known at various times, and we can predict with some confidence the sort of early existence he is likely to have led.

Anthony Rope was born in Norton Subcourse, Norfolk in 1756, the tenth child of John and Ann Rope, and was baptised on August 1 st in the St Mary’s Church. ³ The small rural parish of Norton Subcourse existed prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066 and lies on the edge of the marshes of the River Yare, 24 km southeast of Norwich. In 1760, about 70 people over the age of 16 were living in the parish of St Mary and St Margaret (referred to hereafter as St Mary).

Anthony’s maternal grandparents Robert and Susanna Curtis also lived in Norton Subcourse, and as freehold farmers they had the right to vote. Voting was the entitlement of people owning property worth at least 40 shillings a year. The Norfolk Voting Register for Norton Subcourse (from the 1734 Poll) lists 24 freeholders and includes the name of Robert Curtis. ⁴ The polls from the years 1734 and 1768 reveal the cruel effects of the land Enclosure Acts on small landowners. Over the span of those 34 years, the number of freeholders in Norton Subcourse decreased from 24 to 7, indicating how difficult it had become for small farmers to purchase and retain their existing freeholds.

Anthony was only 4 years old when, on 4 Apr 1760, his mother Ann died aged 45. His father John lived a further 25 years, dying on 12 Nov 1785 at the age of 84. The gravestones of Ann and John are still in excellent condition in St Mary’s churchyard and located next to the graves of Ann’s parents Robert and Susanna Curtis.

The repercussions of Ann’s early death would have been calamitous for the family. Anthony had a baby sister less than one year old, three brothers below 12 years and three sisters aged between 17 and 23 years. The older sisters Susannah, Ann and Mary are likely to have taken over the running of the household and the raising of the younger children. Susannah married 4 years later in 1764, Mary 11 years later in 1771 and Sarah in 1781. The eldest son John, as well as Sarah, remained in Norton Subcourse and both are buried in St Mary’s churchyard.

Anthony, like most poor commoners, was illiterate. Education in rural Britain was rare, and the few schools that existed were usually private and expensive. A village church might provide some classes, and girls were occasionally schooled at home, but it was a luxury affordable only to the wealthy. Most families needed their children to work.

From an early age, the Rope children would have worked with their father on their leasehold land. In rural families this was a matter of survival. Children were part of a tenant farmer’s work force; the boys minded livestock and helped with seeding and harvesting. The girls did the cooking, milking and fed the chickens. On reaching the age of five, a child in a poor rural family was expected to earn his keep either on a farm, at sea, in a mine or in a factory. Even as the youngest child, Anthony would have shared in the heaviest jobs. His efforts nurturing animals, draining ditches and repairing fences was essential in keeping the family afloat, and were skills that would prove invaluable in later life.

Because rural families and villagers traditionally built their own houses, most farm labourers had rudimentary construction skills. Farmers in England were expected to be jacks-of-all-trades and Anthony probably had building experience. Norton Subcourse borders on marshes and the Yare River, and water transport to the nearby North Sea coastal towns of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth was common, so it is quite likely that Anthony became an experienced boatman and shipper.

In the 1750s, freeholder and tenant farmers in England numbered around 350,000 families – most earning between £40 and £150 a year. It is probable that the Ropes were small leaseholders prior to the land Enclosure Acts. A subsistence livelihood was feasible in the early 18 th century provided the farmers worked hard, their rented land was arable, and their animals could graze on the village common. ⁵ Tenant farmers were often allowed to scavenge for fallen branches, to cut peat for fuel and to dig local clay for making bricks but the enclosure laws prohibited many of these practices. Moreover, the custom of levying rents in kind – by barter or labour – had changed by mid-century to the requirement to pay rents in cash. For poor families this proved almost impossible.

In effect, the Enclosure Acts eliminated small freehold farms in many parts of England. Before the land realignments, freehold and tenant farms on quite small plots of an acre or so were labour intensive and required numerous farm workers and domestic servants. These workers were hired on a yearly basis and often resided in the farmer’s household where they frequently helped with the spinning and weaving activities. Producing textiles was an important local cottage industry. The textiles, which were usually sold back to the merchants who supplied the raw materials, were a critical source of income for farmers who had to pay cash rents. Typically, females did the spinning and, depending on the season, the farming men helped with the weaving. By the 1750s, however, the availability of cheap textiles from factories had challenged the viability of cottage weavers and reduced the income of many small farmers.

We know from court records that, years later, Anthony ended up in the small Essex town of Rochford over 170 km south of Norton Subcourse, not far from the Thames River estuary. He may have been on his way to London where many rural unemployed went to seek work, or he may have recently been employed on boats at the many ports and docks in the area. Getting to Rochford from Norton Subcourse is a relatively long journey by land, especially on foot at a time when most villagers rarely travelled more than 10 miles from home. However, if Anthony was a crewman aboard a boat trading at the many ports on the southeast coast, then the historic market town of Rochford on the river Roche is close by and only 40 miles from London.

On the 3 Sep 1784, Anthony, aged 28, appeared before magistrate John T. Bull in Rochford on the charge of stealing from Robert Gosling and Robert Bradley. He had been caught in the act and seen by several witnesses making off with the goods. Anthony was convicted of felony, grand larceny and fraud. ⁶ This was a major crime on which the local magistrate at the Quarter Court had no authority to adjudicate, so the case was transferred to the March 1785 hearings of the Assizes Court in Chelmsford. Until this hearing could be arranged six months’ hence, Anthony was held in Chelmsford prison.

Chelmsford had recently built a gaol, which the prison reformer John Howard wrote about: ‘There is a new Gaol, which exceeds the old one in strength & almost as much as in splendor. The County, to their honour, have spared no cost’. ⁷ In October 1783, this gaol housed a total of 46 prisoners, 21 debtors and 25 felons. A prisoner was fed 1½ lb of bread a day and 1 qt of small beer, requiring a weekly fee of 3s 6d for ‘garnish’. A sign in the prison taproom warned ‘Prisoners to pay garnish or run the gauntlet’. Men and women had separate cells 15¾ x 14½ feet in size, lined with stone and with straw for sleeping. There was also a workroom in which prisoners could weave garters to pay for their keep and for extra food. ⁸

The next Assizes Court hearing in Chelmsford began on Monday, 7 Mar 1785 before Justices, Sir Henry Gould and Sir Richard Perryn. On Thursday morning, 10 Mar 1785, the Judges delivered the verdict on Anthony Rope as follows:

Anthony Rope, late of the parish of Rochford in the co. of Essex Labourer: Burglary by breaking and entering the house of Robert Gosling about 7 in the forenoon on 2 September 1784, and stealing:

two printed cotton Gowns – value 20s

one Petticoat made of Silk and Worsted – value 5s

one Silk Neck Handkerchief – value 18d

one pair of Women’s Leather Shoes – value 1s

one pair of Metal Buckles plated with Silver – value 6d

one Man’s Hat – value 6s

one fustian Frock – value 5s

one pair of Men’s Leather Shoes – valve 2s

one pair of other Metal Shoe Buckles plated with Silver – value 1s

one Hempen Sack of Robert Gosling – value 6d

one pair of others Men’s Leather Shoes – value 5s

one pair of other Metal Buckles plated with Silver – value 3s

one cotton Waistcoat – value 2s

one linen shirt – value 6d

two silk Handkerchiefs – value 2s

one piece of Silver Coin called an Half Crown – value 2s 6d

one piece of proper Silver coin called a Shilling of Robert Bradley

Verdict: Not guilty of breaking and entering. Guilty of stealing. Goods value 35s. No Chattels. Sentence: Transported for 7 years. ⁹

A seven year transportation sentence for burglary may sound harsh but Anthony was fortunate that the judges had exercised pious perjury by undervaluing the stolen goods to 35s. The actual value totalled 58s 6d. The new sentencing laws mandated that if the value of stolen goods exceeded 40s, the sentence had to be death by hanging. The petty larceny charge incurred the lesser sentence of transportation ‘Beyond the Seas’. ¹⁰ The next day the trial was reported in The Chelmsford Chronicle. ‘At our assizes, which began on Monday, the following prisoners received sentences … Anthony Rope, for burglary, seven years transportation.’ ¹¹ The Ipswich Journal published details of the trial a day later, with a similar text. Four months on, The Chelmsford Chronicle observed that the Quarter Sessions had reviewed Anthony’s sentence and it remained the same. ¹² His fate as a transportee was now sealed, and, as such, the Chelmsford gaoler would almost certainly have been trying to move him elsewhere to make space for lesser criminals.

Prisoners sentenced to transportation were usually sent to a hulk moored on the Thames River. It is not known exactly when Anthony was moved to the hulk Ceres, but it was probably after the Quarter Session review of his sentence. His name appears for the first time on the Ceres hulk record of April 1786, which lists his age as 26 (he was 28) and his sentence on 7 Mar 1785 in Chelmsford as 7 years transportation. The record also shows that, with four fellow inmates from Chelmsford gaol, Anthony was transferred from the hulk Ceres to the Justitia on 1 Jun 1786. ¹³ The likely reason for the transfer was that the number of convicts on the Ceres exceeded the contracted quota.

Prison hulks had been moored on the Thames River since 1776. Even with five hulks in service by 1786 the land gaols were grossly over-crowded, and the prisoner quotas for hulks exceeded those agreed to by hulk contractors. ¹⁴

Number of hulks

Incarceration on hulks differed from that in land gaols. Depending on the severity of the crime, convicts might be chained two-on-two and others were in heavy fetters, and they were required to do hard labour dredging the Thames to improve its navigation. Depending on the weather, the prisoners’ worked from 7 am to 6 pm, with a break for lunch, and in winter from 8.30 am to 3 pm. A high brick wall was built on the land facing the hulks to prevent any escapes when irons had to be removed so men could work more freely and effectively. This wall